Unbroken
by Kangar0o
Summary: Jamie Black - daughter of Renesmee and Jacob - needs help when trouble arrives and leaves her & her brother on the verge of being unwound. Can she unlock secrets from her past and create a new alliance of vampires & wolves to protect herself & her family?
1. Preface

**Preface**

Rain beat against the old white-shackled house like a vicious monster pounding to get inside, the wind blowing it every which way along with the trees and the branches and the trash cans outside of each house. A beige plastic can banged against little Nicholas's window as he screamed and covered his head, his eyes shutting as he ducked beneath the bed. This weather wasn't usual for anywhere else in the country, but even the Olympic Peninsula had rarely seen storms such as this one. Beneath the roar of the monsoon, he could hear his parents yelling.

"You've got to be kidding me," his mother said, her voice choked up with stifled tears. "You have _got_ to be kidding me right now."

He ran to the door and peeked out the crack. His parents were right there, standing in the short hallway that led the bedrooms to the kitchen in the one-floor home. His father Jacob was bent over, picking something up off the ground—two large boxes.

_Suitcases_, Nicholas thought. He gulped and shredded nervously at the wood that was on the doorframe.

"I can't be here," said Jacob solemnly. "I can't deal with this anymore."

"So that's it. You're just going to leave us." His mother Renesmee put a hand on her hip. Her foot was tapping quickly like it did when she was anxious, but she was keeping it together pretty well. Renesmee had a thing for composure during her and Jacob's arguments; even if he was so angry that Nicholas thought his father would hit her for sure, Renesmee stayed calm. But now was different—_much_ different, and Nicholas could tell.

Jacob stood up straight, his muscles flexing with the weight of the bags and started into the kitchen but Renesmee put a hand on his chest. "Please don't do this, Jake."

"I can't be here."

She stomped her foot agitatedly. "And tell me why not! Tell me why you _have_ to leave. Please, I would love to know."

His father huffed. "It's not as simple as that—"

"What, you found another woman? Did you 're-imprint'? Is that what happened, because, Jacob, you can tell me these things." Her eyes seemed like they were glowing, they were so glossy.

He shook his head, his jaw clenching as he looked away. His hand was on her face now, cupping her cheek against his big palm; it was then that Nicholas noticed his father was shaking—_trembling_, like he was freezing or having a seizure.

The little boy's breath caught in his throat as he watched Jacob slowly lean down and kiss Renesmee with wide blue eyes. And then, he lifted the suitcases and stalked to the foyer, leaving his wife alone in the kitchen.

For just a moment, everything was silent. All movement in the world seemed to cease, and the only things breathing were him and his mother. Then, Nicholas heard the slam of the front door and realized that his father was gone.

He couldn't fully comprehend what was going on. Just a day before, they had been playing flag football under the bright Washington sun together, the heat thick in the air and the life of the forest purring around them. Renesmee was sitting on the deck with chipping red paint, smiling and laughing every time Nicholas got around his father. Everything seemed to be perfect.

But now that he thought about it…Jacob seemed utterly distressed about something the night before. He was leaning over the kitchen table, his fingers at his temples pushing the skin up into little wrinkles, and his eyes were squeezed shut. Renesmee had gone to sleep by then, but what she didn't know was that her husband was sitting in the dim light of the next room over, clearly bothered by something. _Something…something…_what had it been?

Perhaps he was fired from his job at the garage in downtown Forks; that would've ticked him off. But, enough to make him _leave_? The word 'leave' burned in Nicholas's throat and sent shockwaves through his brain, and he tried to shake the bad feeling that came with it away.

"You're in a dream, you're in a dream," he repeated to himself constantly. "You're in a dream. You're dreaming." He started to pinch the ivory skin on his wrist, leaving tiny folds where his nails bit together. "Wake up, Nick, wake _up_!"

He could hear Renesmee pull a chair out at the kitchen table and sit down. She let out a loud sigh, and then came the worst part.

She wasn't crying—that would be an understatement. Her cries came out in hiccupped sobs and muffled wails, like somebody had punched the life out of her and she was trying to attract attention from the nearby cops. _Catch the bad guys_, she seemed to plead. _Catch Jacob and bring him home_.

Still crouched in front of his door, Nick clasped his hands into fists and began panting. _Why aren't I waking up?_ he asked himself, beads of sweat forming on his forehead. _I need to get out of here. I need to get out of this nightmare!_

He started to pinch himself harder and faster—on his arms, on his legs, on his stomach and shoulders and chest—anywhere he could reach. His hands were quivering and wet from the perspiration now all over his body, and Nick blubbered at the realization that this was not a dream. Salty tears dripped down his now-red cheeks, but he bit his lip to try and prevent the cries from escaping. The last thing he needed was Renesmee to be concerned for his well-being, but that was inevitable now. His father was gone, leaving only him and Renesmee behind to fend for themselves. _It's a dark world out there_, his grandfather Edward told him once.

And now Nick could see why.

Heartbroken and afraid, the boy crawled into his bed and pulled the covers over his head. The hurricane was still raging just outside his window, and he yanked the blankets tighter to his chin. This couldn't be happening. How could God, if there was one, let this happen to him? He said his prayers, he listened to his parents, he did all of his chores…he even did well in school. Nick began reciting all of the reasons why God shouldn't have let this happen like he'd had them rehearsed. He started to plead, his hands clutching each other in a desperate beg, and after a while the weather began to subside. But that didn't matter, because now Nick was dreaming for real.

_He opened his eyes to a dark forest, the one that he vaguely recognized from behind his house in La Push, where his grandfather Billy had lived years and years ago. He turned behind him and saw the flat red ranch with the wheelchair ramp and the shed where Jacob used to work, but in front of him was an abyss that he'd never approached. The moss-covered tree trunks and vines were like green skyscrapers ahead, and giant boulders glistened with random patches of sunlight that leaked through the natural canopy. It had to be early afternoon._

_ Suddenly he heard the crunch of leaves like footsteps from Billy's yard. "Nick?" his mother's voice called._

_ "Mom?" He spun around abruptly, but when he looked no one was there. Instead of walking towards the grass, though, Nick went further into the woods. "Mom, where are you?" He broke into a run, his jeans an uncomfortable jogging suit for his speed. "Mom?"_

_ Nick heard a gust of wind and the rustle of leaves from just behind him, but when whirled around—again—nothing was there. "Whoever you are," he warned, "just come out! I know you're there!"_

_ Silence._

_ Angrily, Nick started to sprint. He ran over the giant rocks and gnarled roots, his white Chuck Taylor shoelaces untying in the muck and underbrush. "Come out of your hiding! You can't fool me!" Now he sounded psychotic. He was surely talking to nothing; there had just been a rabbit, or a chipmunk perhaps. Yet something was convincing him of a somewhat bigger force than just a rodent. Something…_

_ All of sudden a huge russet creature jumped out from behind the tree to his right. It tackled Nick to the ground, against the leaves, against the rocks. It felt as if his spine had been cracked in half and now his skull was next. The wolf snarled and ripped at his denim jacket, tearing away the fabric and then reaching in for his navy sweatshirt. His hands shoved feebly at the wolf's muzzle and his legs felt like they were stuck in ice._

_ But he wasn't ready to die; to be mauled to death by this wolf-bear animal was a cruel way to die, but that wasn't the way Nick was going to go. He could feel a strange fire sizzling in his blood, boiling against the veins that were networked underneath the skin in his arms and legs, and his heart started beating quickly and violently. His hands were shaking the way Jacob's were when he'd held Renesmee's face, and the way they had when Nick heard his mother's sobs from the kitchen. And then, he could hear them again, throbbing against the walls of his head like a beast howling to get out of its cage._

_ And then, as if it was destined to happen, a surge of energy that Nick had never felt before dashed throughout him. His clothes exploded away from his body and his hands and feet turned into huge black claws. His entire form was covered in fur—the same midnight ebony that he had seen on his hands—as he pushed the wolf off of him and into a boulder. The russet animal whimpered in pain and ducked away from Nick, as he leapt into the air in an attempt to finish his attacker…_

The first thing Nick felt was his tail hit the lamp that sat at his bedside table and sent the porcelain flying against the wall, smashing into hundreds of tiny pieces. His bed collapsed from beneath him, the iron-wrought posts caving inwards and snapping the springs that held the mattress upright. Nick thought he could hear a sound coming from the hallway—or the kitchen, maybe—but he was so furious that he simply didn't care. With a mighty jump, the black creature went through the window, shattering glass onto the wooden floor and into the grass below.

Nick stood there, breathing heavily for just a moment, his breath coming out into the cold March air as puffs of steam. In the distance, he could hear the shriek of what he thought was another wolf, just as lightning illuminated the night sky and sent a roll of thunder amidst the clouds. Yet he was wrong.

In a shiver he was standing on his two feet again, but his body was frozen and naked in the rain. His knees gave out and he crumpled into the mud, lying exposed to the rest of the world around him once again.

"_Nicholas_!" he heard Renesmee holler from the deck as another boom of thunder sounded throughout La Push.

Nick then shuddered at the terrible discovery that it wasn't another wolf that he had heard: it was him.


	2. Suspension

**1.**

"Nicholas."

Mom's voice was stern as she headed down the hallway that connected the bedrooms to the kitchen and pounded on my brother's door. "Nicholas, open up right now."

"Fuck off," I heard him mutter and I chewed on my lip, trying to focus in harder on my homework. But I couldn't. Whatever was going on between them now was something I wanted and needed to hear.

"We don't use that language in this house," Mom grumbled. She continued to knock on his door until I heard it swing open.

"What do you want from me, Ma? What did I do?"

She shifted uncomfortably—from what I could hear—and it sounded like she'd waved a paper in front of his face. "Are you unaware of this?"

He didn't speak. For a moment there was pure silence in the hallway and I started doodling on the edge of my math textbook, waiting for somebody else to say something. I wondered what Mom could have in her hands; maybe it was a detention slip. Or a suspension paper.

Or maybe Nick was _expelled_. But that was going too far—we went to the public high school in downtown Forks. They wouldn't be able to expel us from there unless we committed something like murder.

"Do you think you're cool by doing this?"

Nick let out a bitter laugh and his voice rose a few octaves like it did when he was frustrated. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"What do you _think_ I'm talking about, Nicholas? I'm talking about this piece of paper that says you have an in-school suspension after getting into a fight _and_ having possession of marijuana on the premises." She paused. "Having possession _at all_! Did you know that this drug is illegal in our country?"

"So, kids do it anyway. And not medical marijuana. Perfectly legal, ask Carlisle if you want, Ma."

She sighed loudly. "Grandad. He's your Grandad."

"Whatever the fuck he is."

"_Nicholas_, I have had it with your profanities lately! This has gone far enough!"

"What are you gonna do about it? About _me_? Kick me out? Send me to military school?" He paused for a moment, and I could hear him breathing heavily. His voice was shaking.

_Please don't phase now_, I begged him silently. Even though I knew he couldn't hear me, I prayed that there was some kind of telepathy between us that allowed us to hear each other's thoughts. It was like that while we were in wolf form—that mind-reading thing. I could hear his thoughts and he could hear mine, but right now there was only a slim chance he could.

"This needs to stop, Nick. Immediately."

"I'm not doing anything wrong."

"So this isn't wrong to you?" Her voice was getting high pitched as well. I guessed that's where Nick got his worked-up tone from—our mother.

I squeezed my eyes shut and clamped my hand harder over my pencil, trying to read the equations neatly laid out across the book in front of me. The shiny pages seemed to mock me in the dim light of the lamp. _Ha-ha, Jamie, we're perfect and you're not_, they whispered.

"It's not wrong if everyone else is doing it."

That was the worst thing Nick could have possibly responded with, because now Mom was just going to go on her 'if your friends all jumped off a bridge, would you do with them' rampage. Once you had your crowd involved, that was Mom's primary argument. And usually, she won.

"So now you're just going to do everything your friends do, willy-nilly." She flung her arm up and it slapped her thigh lamely. "You're going to go out and 'get high'"—her tone was derisive when she said those last two words—"because that's what everyone at school is doing?" I heard her head shake sadly. "Jamie doesn't do it. And she's not suffering the same peer pressure you are."

Oh, great. They'd dragged me into this. I found myself leaning further off my chair and towards the door, my ear pressed to the wood. I hated it when Mom brought me into one of her and Nick's disputes—which, recently, had happened a lot—because if always meant a two- to four-day split between the three of us where nobody would talk, except for Nick and I occasionally mumbling to each other.

"Really?" Nick said matter-of-factly. "And how do you know Jamie's not doing it behind your back?"

Mom didn't hesitate. "Because she isn't. She doesn't have sketchy friends like you and she doesn't go to those wild 'ragers', or whatever you kids call them."

"Seriously? You're going to bring my friends' appearance into this now?"

You might as well drag the rest of Forks in. Maybe La Push, too.

"I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that I have a greater trust in her when she goes out because—"

Nick scoffed. "Save it, Ma. I don't want to hear it." He went to shut the door but she jammed her foot in the crack before it could close.

"Oh no, we are most certainly not finished with this conversation, young man."

Nick just glared at her angrily. "How much longer are you going to keep this stupid 'mom' act up? You're seventeen. So am I." The words were so awkward that they were practically palpable in the hallway air. I hadn't realized that my face was shoved in the space between the carpet of my room and the door until I sat up for a second and thought what Nick said through. As much of an ugly truth as it was, there was nothing we could do about it. My brother was seventeen. Mom was seventeen. Her father Edward was seventeen, and his wife Bella—my grandmother—was eighteen. In all honesty, it was a pretty fair game whatever Nick countered her with.

_Seventeen_. The thought lingered in my mind for a while. In three years' time I'd be seventeen. Well, actually two and a quarter years; it was May and my sixteenth birthday was September thirtieth. And then two years from the last day of this September, I would be permanently frozen at this random age just like the rest of my relatives due to the vampire blood we possessed. Of course, Jacob didn't have this problem, considering he was a shapeshifter…but he was still stuck at the same age due to Mom's permanency as a kid.

_Jacob_. He was the next thing I thought of. Basically if you brought up Jacob in our house you would be ignored for a week. Maybe two. It was a touchy topic, only because our father had left while Mom was pregnant with me. He didn't even get a chance to meet me.

I remember I asked Mom and Nick both once upon a time why Jacob was gone—it was at the dinner table, I vividly recall—and there was that quietness where nobody's even thinking. Mom speared a salad leaf with her fork and stared down at her plate blankly, sniffling for a moment. She had told me he went to fight in the Heartland War, but there was something about her tone that told me she was bluffing.

Later that night Nick yanked me into his room, placed a finger to his porcelain lips, and whispered to me that he'd just left one day. Packed his bags and headed out. No one even knew why; not even Pop, Jacob's father Billy. Then Nick told me that he became a wolf that night, first in his dreams then for real. And in all honesty, I didn't believe him; until it happened to me too.

"Nick, you've got to start acting more responsibly." I tuned into the conversation again.

"You can't expect me to do everything right around here. I'm just a kid."

"True, but so am I, technically." She raised her eyebrows at him, a slight grin tugging at the corner of her lips.

"Nah, technically you're like thirty-something. I don't know." He shrugged. "You've had more experience than me anyway."

"Ah-ha!" Mom said, smiling fully now. "You see? Just because I'm the 'same age' as you doesn't mean we have equal authority. Doesn't power generate from experience, my dear?"

Nick slouched against the doorframe. "I guess."

"So I know what I'm talking about when I'm saying that you're making a mistake by doing this." She pointed to the yellow suspension paper. "Not only does it make you look like a delinquent, but it's a major infraction on our family and Great Grandpa Charlie. Just because he's retired doesn't mean you can go crazy. He's still a respected person around Forks and he still has the name as one of the best sheriffs this town has ever seen."

"Psht." Nick rolled his eyes and muttered under his breath, "The _only_ sheriff this town has ever seen." It was far too low for Mom to hear; either that, or she just learned to ignore his derogatory remarks.

"Also—I'm sure you don't want to be kicked off the lacrosse team." She nodded to him as he stared in disbelief.

"They can't do that."

"Oh yes, they can. If you have any form of suspension you are automatically deferred from your sport team temporarily as well. Which means no lacrosse, hockey, or football until you stop this nonsense." She wiggled her finger at him, narrowing her eyes.

"_Even_ hockey and football? But it's not fall or winter!"

"That's not the school's rule," Mom said, picking up her laundry basket and leaning against the wall. "That's _my_ rule. Got it, mister?"

Nick rested his head back against the wall, closing his eyes and swallowing. The Adam's apple lodged in his throat lurched as he breathed in deeply. "Yes, Mom."

There was a part of me that felt bad for Nick, because I knew that he had been through more than I had hands down. _And_ Mom expected more from him due to the fact that as soon as Jacob left he was promoted to the 'man of the house' position. But then the other part was no sympathy whatsoever, because he was my older brother and he was the one that got himself into most of these sticky situations.

Suddenly someone knocked on my door and I jumped a foot in the air, scrambling to my bed and pretending to be reading. "Yeah?"

"It's me," Mom said, poking her head in. "Wash up for dinner, honey. Did you finish all your homework?"

"Yes," I lied smoothly, until Mom suspiciously glanced over at the open geometry textbook on my desk.

"And I'm assuming you do math problems in your spare time, is that what's it?"

"I'm just studying for finals. You can never be too early for those, you know?"

Mom chuckled and headed back down the hall. "Whatever, Jay."

Whatever.


	3. A Series of Unfortunate Events

**2.**

The next morning I woke up to the most unfortunate realization—it was Monday.

Mondays in Forks, La Push, anywhere in the Olympic Peninsula perhaps were possibly the worst days you could even imagine. Even worse than Sundays, when you _knew_ that the work was coming and you had to face those awful procrastination prices that hung over your head like nooses. Mondays were wet, cold, and rainy. _Always_ rainy. But then again, when was it _not_ rainy in Forks?

Yet this Monday in particular was even worse. Not because of the fact that Nick had in-school—or because Mom insisted on driving us to school because of that. Something felt off about it, from the very second that the alarm on my phone chirped its happy song to the moment when Nick and I climbed into the Jeep Wrangler with insane bed-head. Even to the moment when Mom dropped us off at the corner across from Forks High downtown, rainwater being sprayed from tire wheels as cars plowed by on the slick roads.

Nick sighed as Mom drove off.

"You gonna ditch?" I asked, pulling my hood up over my auburn braids.

"Nah, can't afford another call from the school." He pursed his lips as we jogged to the curb on the mud-stained crosswalk, waving a gesture of gratitude to the blonde driver of the silver BMW that stopped for us. "Mom would shoot me." He raised an eyebrow as the vehicle sped down the hill towards town. "Nice car for a small town like this one."

I glanced behind us and shivered. "I suppose. But where do they keep you for in-schools?"

Nick shrugged. "I have yet to find out. I just hope it's nowhere near the athletics wing; the last thing I need is for Coach Waldman to find out about this."

"He was probably already informed," I said blatantly. "Hate to rain on your parade, but uh—" I peered up at the sky, rain droplets dotting my face like freckles. "Mother Nature already beat me to the chase on that one."

The two of us walked up the concrete steps toward the breezeway as the first bell buzzed loudly throughout the old building. It was about time they'd finally started construction on this ancient place, though, which included the installment of a new bell system. The current one sounded much like a dying donkey.

They were also putting in a new gymnasium in memorial for Principal Mazur who passed away shortly after my mother graduated. Yet none of the students were all too thrilled because it meant that the administration was indeed _not_ saving money for a central air unit.

"I'll see you later, Jay," Nick said, peeling away towards the office. His fists were clenched and appeared extremely unhappy, but perhaps this in-school was for the best. My brother needed a wakeup call—unless he started shaping up there wasn't going to be a bright future for him. It wasn't necessarily his fault that he wasn't all that smart, but he often abandoned studying for the next day's biology test for getting high and-slash-or drunk with his pals. He was even stupid enough to bring illegal substance into the school at an even more illegal age, and I silently hoped that the in-school room _was_ near the sports wing so that Coach Waldman would give it to him.

Ms. Tinsley checked attendance in homeroom first period, while morning announcements droned on by the same two seniors that had been doing it all year—Ashley Baker and Paul Montesano. Paul was on the football and lacrosse teams with Nick, as Ashley was on the girls' lax team with me. Both were captains, or something along those lines, because on the pep rally day they had to stand down by the leaders' squad with Joe Campbell, the football captain, Gina DiNardo, the volleyball captain, and a plethora of other athletic kids. I was fairly athletic myself—like my brother—landing a spot on both the volleyball and lacrosse teams. Nick worked hard all year round, though; sure, I would jog during my off-seasons, but Mom told me it was in our werewolf blood for the male to have extreme strength.

"Hey, back there." Tinsley craned her giraffe neck and scrunched her glasses up on her nose as her beady eyes probed towards the back of the classroom. "Quiet down, boys." She sniffled and started calling out names as soon as Ashley and Paul's poorly-synchronized "have a nice day" signaled the end of the announcements.

"Black?" she called.

I was busy doodling on the edge of my desk when her scratchy voice cut off my train of thought.

"Jamie, pay attention!"

"Oh," I stuttered. "Sorry."

JT—my best friend who sat in the aisle next to me—stifled a laugh. "Way to be, Jay," he said, smirking.

I narrowed my eyes at him as Tinsley barked out his last name. "Ward?"

JT raised his hand and I turned back to my doodle: a guitar plugged into an amplifier. I was about to sketch little music notes when the bell rang and I felt JT's hand on my shoulder.

"Time for your next class, Jaybells," he said, earning my smile when he used the nickname he adorned me with as a kid. When I told him that I had two middle names—Allison and Isabella—and that no one ever used the second one, he said "Nonsense!" or whatever word he _did _say with his crazy lisp, and thus the name Jaybells was born.

I glanced up at him, brushing a strand of hair out of my face. "¿Vamonos a Español?"

JT smiled at me as I stood up. "Vamonos."

* * *

><p>The morning dragged on endlessly—or, so it seemed. Finally, it was one o'clock and JT and I were making our way down the wheelchair ramp into the cafeteria. I trudged to our table and dropped my bag onto the ground, JT beside me, but something was different. Something was missing.<p>

Ava was there, Mark was there, Troy was there…

"Where's Marissa?" I asked, peering towards the salad bar where she usually hung all over Kieran Fray and his blue and gold varsity jacket.

Ava put her French homework away and frowned. "Marissa was sent to be unwound yesterday."

"What? Why?"

JT's eyes widened in shock. "Marissa's never done anything wrong."

"Besides being a whore," Troy said, rubbing his temples and glaring down at the geometry homework laid out in front of him. "Her mom got fed up with the hickeys on her stomach and the condoms stuffed into her drawers so her stepdad solved the problem by sending her to the nearest harvest camp at Woods Creek."

I sat down, feeling sick. This unwinding business was _not_ the way the government should be taking care of delinquents, or even kids who did as much as sleep around like Marissa. But ever since the Heartland War and the illegalization of abortion, unwinding seemed like the only way to get rid of unwanted kids. My thoughts flashed to Nick, and how he was a mere one year away from technically being eighteen. A mere one year from being eligible to escape unwinding.

JT glanced at me sideways, tapping his fingers on the table. "You wanna go get a salad?"

My stomach churned as I thought of Marissa at the salad bar. "No thanks. I'm not hungry anymore."

He sighed as Mark got up and they both went to get lunch.

"Who else was sent? Anyone from the school?" Ava suddenly asked, as if Troy had all the answers. He probably did. His sister was Ashley Baker, captain of the lacrosse team and student council president, who knew everything about everyone around here. Besides, this was a small town and scandalous information spread like wildfire around here.

"Jared Froman and Quinn Ward," Troy told us monotonously, still scanning the pages of his geometry textbook; probably to the back to find answers.

"Jared was a troublemaker, but I thought Quinn was a good kid," said Ava.

"She is, but Washington StaHo #45 was making cuts, and they said that she 'reached her potentials' already and there was no room left for improvements. So they sent her off to…Marrowstone Harvest Camp, I believe."

"That's terrible," I muttered awfully, staring down at the table.

All of a sudden, I felt someone tap my shoulder. I whipped around, expecting it to be JT, but instead I saw Vice Principal Fiore.

"What did I do?" I blurted without thinking.

The look in her eyes were sad, as she helped me up and bit her lip. "You'd better come with me, Miss Black," she said gravely.

"Am I in trouble? I'm not going to be unwound, am I?"

Troy's and Ava's eyes were full of panic as Fiore shook her head. "No, but you need to come to the main office with me. Your brother will be there shortly."

"Nick's not going to be unwound!" I shouted, near hysterics. "Please just give him another chance, Mrs. Fiore, please!"

She shook her head again. "It's not him either. I need you to come with me, _immediately._"

Reluctantly, I subsided and let her lead me down the hall towards the office. As we walked up the ramp, I flashed a nervous look to JT, who appeared just as worried as me.

We stopped outside the old gym before continuing farther down the hall to the front of the school, and Fiore poked her head into Coach Waldman's office. Sure enough, my brother was in there, being chastised verbally about the evils of marijuana and alcohol for a young athlete.

"Nicholas, I need you to come with me," she said.

He groaned, rolling his head around. "What'd I do this time?"

"It's not you," said Fiore. "Please, Coach Waldman, I need you to excuse Mr. Black for the rest of the afternoon."

"I'm not finished with him!" Waldman barked, standing up as Nick did. "This boy needs to learn a serious lesson!"

"Al, please." Fiore glared at him, her eyes seeming to cast shadows across the atmosphere, because he backed apologetically into his office and shut the door.

The three of us reached the office, where Principal Jackson was sitting, waiting for us. "Have a seat," he told us, gesturing to the chairs across from his desk. Nick swallowed apprehensively, the Adam's apple jogging in his throat. I found that my lower lip was quivering, and I bit down hard on it until I tasted blood to stop it.

Jackson folded his hands and looked down at the cherrywood desk. "This is never an easy thing for me to tell my students, and I haven't seen it much in my few years of being principal here, but when I do have to it pains me greatly."

There was silence, and then a sharp, deep voice cut through it like a knife. "Just tell us," said Nick, his silver eyes like steam.

Jackson sighed. "Jamie, Nicholas; your mother's dead."


	4. Unwind

**3.**

I didn't know what to say. Or, more like, I couldn't _physically_ bring myself to say anything. Instead, my mouth dropped open and let out a pathetic squeak.

"I'm so sorry." Jackson was out of his desk now, at our sides, with his hands on my shoulder. I wanted so badly to push him away, but it was like I couldn't find the required energy to do it. I remained motionless as Nick tore away from the principal's grip and out the door. He was shaking so violently that only I could tell he was about to phase.

"H-How did it happen?"

Jackson raked a hand through his thick salt-and-pepper hair and turned to sit on the edge of his desk, which was very unlike him, being one of the more strict principals Forks High has seen. Without drawing much attention, he shoved a few papers under the giant calendar that was spread across it and toyed with a pen. "Police are still examining the scene. They think it may have been…" His voice trailed off.

"What?" My eyes glared up at him and I can feel the redness spreading through them. "What do they think it was?"

He swallowed hard. "Deliberate murder. Manslaughter."

I sat back down, holding my head in my hands, trying not to burst into tears here at school. The bell that signaled the end of seventh period rang, but I didn't dare look outside. At everyone I knew. Walking by and watching me cry. Watching me appear so vulnerable and weak and made of plush.

Then I saw JT at the door, a look of bemusement in his deep brown eyes. Troy was there behind him, and Ava and Mark. I hid my splotchy face and let Fiore take care of it in her hushed yet urgent tone. And then right before they were ushered away, I saw the complete and utter sorrow on JT's face. He'd known my mother for so long; she'd been like the parental figure he'd never had. Since he lived in one of the state homes, he'd never experienced the kind of love that came with having a family.

Now, it was only us.

"What about my grandparents? Isabella and Edward Cullen? They live right in town." I knotted my fingers together nervously, not sure what else to do. But the awful look in Jackson's black irises scared me immensely.

"Your…your entire family is gone, Miss Black. Gone from their homes, gone from Forks…" He sighed and rubbed his temple, clearly agitated. "There's no sign of them anywhere. I'm truly sorry."

His words were meaningless, though. My mind was reeling and I couldn't think straight. _Gone_? As in dead? "Were there any signs of threat at the residence? My grandparents' residence, I mean." I licked my lips to prevent them from going dry, but my tongue felt like sandpaper against the flesh. I blinked hard and tried to process was Jackson was saying, but his voice sounded far away.

"There were no visible signs of threat, but like I said before, state troopers have been sent to the sites of both your home and your grandparents' home to investigate."

I stared down at my feet, intensely focusing on the lines in the tiles beneath the soles of my sneakers. Maybe if I drifted to sleep counting them, I'd wake up from my dream and realize that everything was okay. Mom would just be getting ready for work and tapping on mine and Nick's doors to wake us up. And we'd trudge into the kitchen to find Honeycombs and Cocoa Puffs on the table with two empty bowls and a gallon of milk, with water glistening on the plastic like sweat.

"Jamie?"  
>I didn't look up or acknowledge him or even bother to respond. I pinched the skin on my wrist and felt nothing but a sharp twist of pain. And when I opened my eyes in a hurried blink, I realized that this was no dream, no nightmare, no figment of my imagination.<p>

This was real.

"Jamie." His voice was sterner now as I felt the tears welling and spilling out of the corners of my eyes. And then I was choking on the bile that was rising in my throat as the full comprehension hit me that my mother was dead. My vampire family that had protected me for so long had vanished. I was basically on a one-way ticket to hell.

I grabbed for the principal's garbage can and retched into it, vomiting anything that I had in my system for the past week it seemed like. When I was done, I sat back in the chair, my face paler than usual and wet with perspiration as I felt the need to cry again. But instead I bit back my emotion and turned to Jackson, who was handing the trash bin to a janitor that had popped in. His expression was full of disgust until my voice interrupted whatever thoughts were going through his head.

"What about Nick and I?"

I could tell that by the way he turned away from me and looked out the window—at the rainy world outside of us—that he didn't want to tell me the answer I already knew was coming. We were going to be unwound. The state homes couldn't take a fifteen-year-old or a seventeen-year-old, especially with Nick's delinquent record. The last thing the Washington homes needed was an unstable wolf kid that set cars on fire and smoked bongs during free period. Nick had athletic talent, sure, but not enough to save us both. And as for myself—I was one of the youngest kids in our sophomore class; immature, unimportant, average.

"The administration has not yet decided what the consequences will be for your brother and you. It's too early to jump to any conclusions yet."

Then I found myself mumbling the words I never thought I would. "What about my father?"

Jackson turned around to display his look of pure bewilderment. "Your father?"

I nodded slowly, taking in what I'd just blurted out without due process of thought. "His name is Jacob Black. He left my mother when she was pregnant with me, but he's out there somewhere." I scooted back farther into my chair, suddenly regretting what I'd revealed. "I-I don't know where he is, but if you tell him that his kids are in danger of being unwound, maybe he can help."

The principal breathed in dramatically again, squeezing the bridge of his nose with his thick brown fingers. "We…will attempt in contacting him. I doubt there will be any luck and it will only be a waste of hope."

The next words that I uttered were simply instinctive. "So that's it; you're going to Google a Jacob Black who's somewhere out in the world, give him a ring, and if he's never been married to a Renesmee or had a son named Nick then we're sent off to harvest camp?" The fury in my veins was palpable even through my skin; it lingered in the air like smoke. "You're just going to give up on us?"

Jackson didn't speak.

"You're just going to release us into the hands of these stupid surgeons without any objection, aren't you? Because what's another two teenagers unwound? _Killed_? It doesn't matter. Nick's a bad kid anyway. And I'm just next in line."

Jackson was stunned. "You're lucky I don't suspend you out of the goodness of my heart and the pity I have for the loss of your family—"

"What's two lives anyway? Two lives that could have done great things in the world. What does it matter?"

"You seem to forget that being unwound is not killing you, but spreading your gifts to ones around the country that _need_ them—"

"I'm sure that's what they tell everyone right before they're about to destroy them. Unwinding is cold, hard murder." I paused for a second, my throat tightening. "Just like what happened to my mother."

Well that seemed to stop Principal Jackson in his tracks. He glowered at me in disbelief, and it was then that I noticed the harvest camp papers that his fingers couldn't quite conceal. The papers that he'd so swiftly tried to shove under his calendar.

But I didn't say anything in response to that. I only glared at the _Woods Creek_ typed neatly across them in sheer disapproval, making it apparent to Jackson that I already saw his plans to send Nick and me off to our deaths.

"Don't bother calling my father," I said grimly. "I'll find him myself."

My triumph was short-lived as I reached the edge of the parking lot and suddenly broke down. My mother Renesmee was dead. Gone. Never to be seen again. My protector. My best friend. My _mommy_.

I sat curled up on the curb, my knees tucked up to my chin and let the tears fly freely now through the cracks in my hands that tried so hard to hide my identity. Where was Nick? I knew that he had phased and run off, but I needed him now more than anything and he was missing. I cried harder.

"Jay!"

I glanced up through my fingers, not wanting to display my swollen face to the rest of the high school population, but when I saw JT running to me I gave up and flung myself into his arms.

"She's gone," I whispered as he smoothed my hair back and kissed my cheek softly.

"It's okay, shhh, it'll be all right."

Lightning shredded through the sky as my best friend put his jacket around my damp body, guiding me down the road towards my house as the storm raged on incessantly.


	5. The Diner

**4.**

The long and dreary walk home I spent explaining what had occurred in Jackson's office to JT, but leaving out the part about Jacob. He strolled close to my side, listening intently, hanging onto every word that I needed to say until we reached the strip of woods by the old white house. That was when we saw the yellow caution tape across the street. There were about five police cars blocking off the street and another five in the driveway, but the middle of the pavement is where I saw the blood smeared until it reached a tarp covering a lumpy object that looked like a human. Neighbors were surrounding the premises, their prying eyes probing the scene in shock and repulsion.

I couldn't continue. My knees buckled and I fell back against JT, who scrambled to keep me stable.

"Jamie," he whispered, his deep voice almost pleading, "Stay up. We can turn back now."

"I don't know," I said, biting down hard to keep myself from sobbing again. "I just…feel like I need to…be here."

"We can catch a bus to my StaHo," JT suggested, putting an arm around me and glancing over my shoulder at the house as he tried to lead me away. "There are probably Juvey Cops crawling all around here, waiting for you and Nick."

"JT, that's my _house_," I insisted, pulling away. "That's my _mother_."

The emptiness in his eyes was clearly visible, even though there was a mist set before the chocolate brown like a fog-ridden cave. "You'll get taken away to be interrogated. We at least need to wait for your brother."

I looked behind us into the plush green forest but I didn't even see even a gentle rustle among the ferns. I tucked my hands into my sweatshirt pocket and pursed my lips, wishing that Nick were here, but I didn't even have the slightest clue about where he was. He could've been in Canada, for all I knew.

"Come on," JT tried again. He guided me towards the shoulder of the double-yellow-line road just a little down our lane, down through the town and eventually to the tiny roadside diner that had been in business since my great-grandfather Charlie's time many years ago. He opened the door for me and a bell at the top rang, signaling that there were new customers arriving.

"Take a seat anywhere," said a young waitress with honey-colored skin and dark hair, reading a magazine behind the counter.

JT slipped into a booth and I scooted in across from him. He picked up a menu and then put it down suddenly. "Well I already know what I'm getting."

"I'm not hungry," I murmured, staring at the log cabin walls.

He sighed, chewing on his bottom lip. "Look…I know that this is…_tough_…"

"My mother is dead. My grandparents and aunts and uncles are gone. Nick ran away." I glared up at him with bloodshot, teary eyes. "I'm an orphan, JT."

My best friend blinked hard. "Now we're on the same boat, aren't we?"

"Not necessarily," I replied bitterly, toying with a fork, digging my nails between the bent silver prongs.

JT's eyelid twitched. "How so? Now, we both technically belong to the state." He tugged on his cerulean blue beanie until it made the brown curls hang in his eyes. "You're no longer Jamie Black. You're JamieWard."

His words frightened me. _You're Jamie Ward_. That couldn't be…of course, if Jacob were alive I would still be a Black.

"You know what else I told Jackson?" I said after a few minutes of undefined silence, raising an eyebrow at JT skeptically.

He took a sip of water through the straw and glass that the waitress left at our table. "What was that?"

"I told him that Nick and I wouldn't _have_ to be sent away, because of—you know—our father."

JT almost choked on his drink. "You mean Jacob? The asshole that left your mom?"

I looked down at my jeans, black from the darkness beneath the table. "Yeah, him. What if…what if he's still out there, J? He can save us."

He frowned and gently took my hand from across the seat. "Jaybells, I—I don't know about that. I mean, I hate to sound so negative, but does he even know he _has_ a daughter?"

That was true. Renesmee had never officially told him she was expecting, so as far as his knowledge went he only had one child: a boy named Nicholas. With bright blue eyes and uneven black hair and chalk-white skin. Even if he saw me, he'd never be able to tell I was related to Nick with my reddish-brown hair, chestnut eyes, and olive-toned skin. All the Quileute blood went to me, as Mom had once told me.

My sudden thoughts of her pained me to the core and made me miss her even more. Her smile. The way she'd kiss my bruises and batters. The nights she'd tuck the covers all the way up to my chin and give me Eskimo kisses. Her warmth. Everything about her was gone. But as much as JT had been my best friend since first grade, he still didn't understand fully what it was like to have a mother and then just suddenly lose her. Sure, his parents surrendered him to the StaHo, but he was a baby when that happened. He never knew them, so maybe it was easier to let them go. Easier to say he didn't care.

The waitress came back and smiled at us both, tucking the strand of black hair behind her ear. "What will you be having for lunch today?"

I let JT answer her. "Cheeseburger deluxe, no tomatoes." His gaze settled on me. "She'll have—"

"I don't want anything," I interrupted coldly.

She didn't question it. "Well all right." She bit her lip softly. "Your food will be out in a little while."

As soon as she left, JT spoke again. "I was only trying to help."

"I don't have money."

"I'd pay for it myself." He raised his eyebrows and fished through his pockets for some cash. "You know I would."

"Yeah," I mumbled. "I know. It's just…"

I looked up to see that JT was still watching me carefully. His appearance hadn't changed much at all over the years; he still had that goofy smile and the sienna locks that curled slightly at the end, just so that they would cover his forehead. His eyebrows had, had course, grown bigger, taking more shape and over his jaw-line grew light stubble that came back time and time again. The StaHo had named him John Todd, but he had always preferred JT—it made him 'cooler,' he told me when we first met.

"…it's just that the news is still fresh. I mean, it hasn't quite hit me yet, because I just found out but…" My voice trailed off hopelessly as the waitress returned, placing the full plate in front of my friend.

When she was gone, JT pushed the platter to the center of the table. "Have some," he insisted, taking a fry and crunching on it. "Please. You need to eat."

"I had breakfast," I said, pulling my hands up into my sweatshirt sleeves so that they were invisible. "I don't think I can digest anything right now." _My mother_, I thought yet again, _she's gone_.

Those words repeated themselves in my head, tapping on my brain and surging throughout my body, to my hands still hidden beneath the black fabric, to my legs which now tingled, and to my heart, which pounded heavily in my ears.

"Who do you think did it?" I mused finally, my glance going back to my friend. He had taken a few bites out of the burger and dumped ketchup all over the French fries, but he was back to staring me down. The concern in his eyes was so visible that I had to look away.

"What do you mean?"

"You know, who do you think killed her. Who killed my mom?"

JT shifted in his booth uncomfortably. "Er…was she involved with any drug cartels?"

I frowned at glared at him. "J, seriously."

"Gangs? Abusive boyfriends?"

"No, no, no." I shook my head and rubbed my temples in frustration. "I can't think of anything in particular…"

JT blinked, examining the edge of the table. "Does she have any high school enemies that live up here? _Ex_-boyfriends?"

I tried to think back to the meager information that Renesmee had shared with Nick and me about her life at Forks High. I cursed myself mentally for not remembering the minor details, but nothing had ever been about run-ins she'd had with classmates. And I knew for a fact that the only significant boy in her life was Jacob. _"Because of imprinting,"_ Mom had told me once; it was one of the few times she talked about my father, _"it's kind of like something that guarantees you'll be together forever, with nobody else."_ When I was young, I hadn't taken much thought about her words but now I realized how much they must've pained her to say.

"Or…something…_non_human?" JT peered up at me, still obviously deep in thought, his untrimmed curls brushing his eyelashes. For a moment I thought the look in his eyes was amusement, but then I perceived it as nothing more than knowing. JT was the only person who knew that the Blacks were no ordinary American family. Mom was half vampire, but Nick and I were one third werewolf and one third vampire—with, of course, the one third human percentage. Contrary to our appearances, though, Nick was more wolf and I was more…well, human. Neither of us were really vampires, due to the fact that we'd been raised for most of our lives as normal Quileute children. It wasn't until I was ten years old that Mom pulled us out of the reservation's elementary and middle schools and we moved into Great-Grandpa Charlie's old house in Forks.

But at JT's suggestion, I didn't quite know how to react. _If_ there was something nonhuman indeed that ended my mother's life—perhaps a vampire, or maybe even a werewolf—the Volturi would surely be dealing with the situation. Or, at least that's what I kept telling myself. I'd never come into contact with the Volturi themselves, because they claimed that Nick and my species was a disgrace to the vampire world; that we shouldn't even be allowed in their presence. They already frowned upon my mother's existence, but…

The thought suddenly brought everything else speeding around in my mind to a screeching halt. Could it be that the Volturi were the ones that had murdered Renesmee? But then I reviewed the prospect, and decided that it was a ridiculous proposition. It would mean a corrupt world of turmoil and rampages against the humans as vampires discovered that even their regulators couldn't keep a straight act in the face of hell itself. I shook everything away, mentally burning the ideas and erasing the ashes with an imaginary pencil.

JT tapped his fingers nervously on the table. "You know any other wolves around here, _besides_ the ones on the reservation?"

I gulped and shook my head no. "Why would wolves come after her anyway? It's not like she did anything to hurt them."

He smirked mischievously only for a moment, and then slapped the cash down on the table for the waitress, sorting the crumpled bills out with his fingers. "You never know. She _was_ the last one to be with Jacob Black before he left." JT arched one of his eyebrows way above the other like he did when he was onto something. "Or, that's what everyone says. Was he with his dad?"

"No, Billy died years before Nick was born. So Mom was the last one to see him in La Push." I rubbed my chin, trying to think back to what my brother had told me about the day our father left. I wished he were here with us to maybe aid us in working through the mystery…

JT's brow furrowed as he counted out the ones and set them in the middle of the table for a tip. "And she was the last one with Jacob, then."

I nodded hesitantly. It was making sense, but I just didn't know why the wolves would get revenge on her _now_ even if it was them who were responsible for the crime. "Why would they come after her fifteen or so years later, though?"

JT shrugged and adjusted his hat. "Who knows? Maybe they just needed time planning everything out."

"I highly doubt that." I chewed on the inside of my cheek at the waitress came by again, taking JT's empty plate and handing him the receipt. Right away, he gave her a twenty-dollar bill, and she grinned as she took it the register for his change.

"Look, Jaybells." I glanced up at him, my lips parting in an attempt to find the right words of gratitude for his support but I just sat there numbly instead.

"I know this is tough, but we can get through it together. It's what Renesmee would've wanted."

His words broke my heart, but I smiled weakly and bobbed my head in consent. "You're right. It is."

We were both about to get up when the bell above the door chimed and four tall fierce-looking boys—about juniors or seniors in high school—walked in.

Among them was my brother.


End file.
